In a solemn declaration last August, President Obama called on Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad to step down. Almost six months later, Assad, supported by Russia and Iran, is not only hanging on to power but is also reported to be preparing chemical weapons for use against his own people in several rebel strongholds, including Homs and Idlib.
Meanwhile, several members of Assad’s entourage are trying to sell a supposed political solution to the crisis through UN Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.
According to sources close to the discussions, the “solution” is aimed at reconciling Assad’s insistence on staying until the end of his term in 2014 and the rebels’ demand that the despot be toppled immediately.
Under Brahimi’s formula, Assad would step aside, rather than stepping down, allowing the formation of a transition Cabinet headed by one of his two vice presidents. The Cabinet, with six members from the opposition and another six named by Assad, would discharge the president’s executive duties until the end of Assad’s mandate in 2014.
Meanwhile, the interim Cabinet would organize national elections for a constituent body charged with writing a new constitution, which would then be submitted to a referendum. That would be followed by presidential and parliamentary elections under the new constitution.
Brahimi reportedly has “keen interest” in the formula. Yet several snags remain.
The first is Assad’s demand to be given immunity from prosecution by the United Nations in the International Criminal Court — something neither Brahimi nor his boss, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, has the power to give. The second snag is the rebels’ refusal to allow Assad to stay on even as a nominal head of state.
Brahimi has been deeply affected by his experience in post-liberation Iraq. He believes that the disbanding of the Iraqi army and the so-called de-Ba’athification policy were at the roots of Iraq’s sectarian conflicts that lasted for almost five years.
Thus he hopes to avoid a similar situation in Syria. He wants the Syrian army to stay intact and prevent the seizure of power, at least at the local level, by uncontrollable armed Jihadists. He also wants “an orderly purge” that would not destroy the Syrian bureaucracy and academic and media elite in the name of de-Ba’athification.
The Syrian Ba’ath Party claims to have 2.3 million members — but most of that consists of people who need membership to get a job or be promoted. Leaving aside a few thousand top cadre (mostly from the Alawite minority to which Assad belongs), the Ba’ath Party is no more than an empty shell. Thus it would be bad politics to throw out hundreds of thousands of people simply because they carried party membership cards.
Yet the biggest snag to the formula negotiated by Brahimi is the growing perception that Assad is no longer in charge even of his side of the Syrian civil war.
“We formed the impression that key decisions are always cleared with Tehran,” says a senior Lebanese figure just back from a visit to Damascus. “Iran sees this as its own war and is determined to keep Assad in power at any cost.”
To pass its message, Tehran has dispatched a string of top officials to Damascus to stiffen Assad’s resolve. These include the foreign minister, speaker of the Parliament, head of the High Council of National Security, chairman of the Parliamentary Security and Intelligence Committee, several Revolutionary Guard commanders and half a dozen Cabinet ministers.
Brahimi is pursuing his negotiations with the Assad camp with good intentions — but he may be doing more harm than good. Feeding the illusion that Assad could hang on to power for another 18 months while the whole of Syria is ablaze may encourage the regime to pursue its policy of mass repression.
It could also discourage those in the opposition who might be ready to participate in a peaceful transition — which would allow armed jihadists to cast themselves as Syria’s sole saviors.
The sad truth is that Brahimi’s mission has failed. The honorable thing for him to do is to throw in the towel, forcing the Security Council to face its responsibilities.